The Game brings it on “The Documentary 2.0”

princess abumere

October 29, 2015 10:18 AM

“The Documentary 2.0” is a top-ranking album with an all-star cast. If you like gangster rap, this is for you.

Album - "The Documentary 2" (Disc one)

Artist – The Game

Guest Appearances – Kendrick Lamar, DeJ Loaf, Sha Sha, Ice Cube, Dr. Dre, will.i.am, Diddy, Ab-Soul, Marcus BLACK, Jelly Roll, Q-Tip, Eric Bellinger, Future, Sonaye, Kanye West, Drake, Snoop Dogg, and Fergie

Producers - Bongo 'The Drum Gahd', The Mekanics, will.i.am, Jahlil Beats, Cool & Dre, Jelly Roll, Stat Quo, Mike Will Made-It, Sevn Thomas, Kanye West, DJ Premier, Cardo, Johnny Juliano

Record Label - Blood Money Entertainment

Duration – 73:18

10 years later The Game drops “The Documentary 2”. This highly anticipated album is a sequel to his debut album, “The Documentary” which was released in 2005. He made this a double release by putting out “The Documentary 2.0” and “The Documentary 2.5” a few days later.

As per the American rapper’s usual style, his sixth studio album is a fusion of gangster rap and West Coast hip-hop. It features collaborations with Diddy, DeJ Loaf, Kanye West, Kendrick Lamar, Drake, Dr Dre, Snoop Dogg, and several other American artists.

The intro to the album starts off as a 58 seconds audio drama, setting a scene of gang violence.

The West Coast rapper’s lyrics on the album are about his hometown, Compton, he pours his story into some of the tracks as well as verses about culture and the street life. He also raps about money, relationships, religion and race. Theres also a lot of shout outs and name dropping on the tracks.

The 19-track album brings on an old school classic music kind of vibe on some of the tracks. This is probably because The Game samples a couple of throwback tracks. Erykah Badu’s ‘On and on’ is sampled on ‘On me’, on ‘Step up’ featuring DeJ Loaf and Sha Sha samples of 'I wanna be down' by Brandy. ‘Standing on Ferraris’ samples the Notorious B.I.G’s ‘Things done changed’ and ‘Kick in the door’.

The throwbacks are not just limited to sampled beats. The talent takes a look back at his growth in the game on ‘Dollar and a dream’. He does the same thing on ‘The Documentary 2’, which is actually a follow up to the original song.

“I've been rapping for 12 years, 6 months, 16 days

Now I'm a veteran, spit a 16 sixteen ways”, he raps.

The former G-Unit artist pays homage to Biggie and 2Pac on his album. On ‘Step Up’, he gives tribute to Biggie Smalls and switches his delivery style to a tone similar to the late rapper’s.

Some of the collaborations are a bit weird in the sense that the featured artists could have done so much more. For instance, on ‘Standing on Ferraris’, Diddy just does a lot of hyping on the song. On ‘Step up’ Dej Loaf’s verse comes on at the end of the song and she just chants the same thing. Plus on ‘Mula’, we have liked a bit more from Kanye West.

Drake sounded real tired/faded on ‘100’, but he still went hard on the track delivering a catchy hook.

Best songs: ‘Don’t trip’, ‘Standing on Ferraris’, ‘Circles’, ‘Dedicated’, ‘Mula’, ‘100’, and ‘Summertime’.

princess abumere